January 20, 2014 • 32 mins
To celebrate her January 19 birthday, Cristen and Caroline look at the incredible life of country music legend Dolly Parton and why many consider the over-the-top entertainer a feminist icon.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how stupp
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Caroline and I'm Kristen, and today's episode is dedicated to
a very special woman. This is one big happy birthday
card sealed with a kiss to miss Dolly Parton. That's right,
(00:25):
filled with a kiss and lots of glitz and glamor.
But Dolly Parton, her sixty eighth birthday was on January nineteenth,
and we figured we should do an entire episode on her.
And even though we're devoting an entire podcast just to Dolly,
it was hard to fit Dolly's life and accomplishments into
(00:47):
only one recording. Caroline. Yeah, we started going through this
timeline of her life and all of her awards and
her accomplishments and things, and I'm reading through it and
I'm like, okay, okay, so she did this, and she
won this, and she wrote this, and then she's are
in this and I'm like, wait, no, I can't even
keep track of all of this stuff because she has
done so much in her sixty eight years. And we
(01:07):
figured that she definitely deserved her own podcast because it's
her birthday and she's Dolly, and Dolly really deserves the
world if you ask me. But she was an incredible
it still is an incredible businesswoman. She's a legendary performer,
still performing, still touring, and she's often cited too as
(01:27):
a feminist icon, even though that's not necessarily a label
that she puts on herself. And she's one of those
unique people where no matter where on the political spectrum
you are, she everybody seems to love her. Yeah, so
much so that she is actually filling the Glastonbury Legend
(01:50):
slot during this huge festival's Sunday night performance in Yeah Yeah,
I mean, because who wouldn't want to still see Dolly Parton.
She's neabulous, she can do anything, she can wear anything,
she can say anything, she can go anywhere, and people
love her yeah uh, and she's incredibly talented to it.
(02:11):
We can't even hit all of the high points of
her career because there are simply too many to list
and that would become the most boring podcast in the world.
But for instance, she's written over three thousand songs, and
twenty five of those songs have been certified gold, platinum
(02:32):
and multi platinum, and she has garnered seven Grammy Awards,
ten Country Music Association Awards, five Academy of Country Music Awards,
three American Music Awards, and is only one of five
female artists to win the Country Music Association's Entertainer of
the Year award. And that's not even all. That's not all, Kristen.
(02:56):
She's the first artist to earn a number one record
twice with I Will Always Love You Yeah. And just
on a side note of what a what a persistent
and diligent businesswoman she is in the songwriting field, the
U S Copyright Office database shows eight hundred and sixty
two entries for Dolly Partners, either author or claimant, and
(03:19):
that wouldn't even include all of her copyrighted songs because
the database started collecting after she was writing songs. So
she's always been very much focused on her goal of
being who she is today, of this incredibly famous, talented,
(03:39):
successful performer, and has always been really diligent as well,
and on the business side of things, of making sure
that Dolly Parton gets her due for all of the
hard work that she has put into not just her
hair and makeup and clothes right well, so on the
business side of things, you know, obviously she has her
(03:59):
Dollywood amusement parks. She also has a production company called
sand Dollar, which, by the way, produced TV's Buffy the
Vampire Slayer. She also has a record label, because why
wouldn't she. Yeah, yeah, it's called Dolly Records, because of
course it would be called Dolly Records. On top of that,
she is an author her memoirs called My Life An
(04:19):
Other Unfinished Business, and she's also written a children's book,
The Coat of Many Colors, right after her song of
the same name, all about, you know, being a poor
child growing up in Tennessee and her mother's stitching together
this coat out of rags and being made fun of
at school. But now who's laughing? That's right all the
way to the bank in her sequin outfit. God, she's amazing.
(04:40):
It's amazing. Well, so I have said this on the
podcast before, but you know, Dolly is an actress as well,
and she is in one of my favorite movies of
all time. She debuted in nineteen eighties, Nine to five
with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. Yeah, it's hard to
recommend Nine to five enough because it's hilarious and it's
not only Dolly Parton, but it's also Jane Fonda and
(05:02):
Lily Tomlin, and they are an incredible trio with a
fabulous eighties wardrobe. And there's some bizarre plot points, but
you've got to love it for what it is, which
is a snapshot of when women are really trying to
make their way into the workplace and have to deal
with all these sexist male bosses and they're not having
(05:23):
any of it. That's right. And there's a shotgun involved
in some bondage. It's great. Um. She also had roles
in Steel, Magnolia's Best Little Horhouse in Texas, rhyin Stone,
and Straight Talk, in addition to TV shows, made for
TV movies, HBO Specials, the whole Thing. Yeah. I think
one of her most recent guest darring roles was on
(05:44):
Hannah Montana because, come to find out, she's Miley Cyrus's godmother. Yeah.
She has stuck up for Miley through a lot of
this rigamarole in the media. Yeah, because I mean, Dollies
had to deal with her own rigamarole as well, but
she's always handled it very gracefully because when it comes
to Dolly, she she's just been so singularly focused on
(06:05):
success and wanting to achieve her goals and accepting herself
completely for who she is. And it's kind of like, well,
I'm Dolly. You can take me or leave me, but
you're gonna take me because I'm precious. But we've got
to go through her musical timeline as well, because it's
incredible how early her talent emerged. Because in in ninety six,
(06:28):
she was born in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, and she wrote
her first song in nineteen fifty one, she's five years old,
and she wrote a song called Tiny Little Tasseltop and
it was about this homemade doll that was made out
of corn husks, and it was her friend. Yeah, to
further flesh out this image, Dolly was the fourth of
(06:49):
twelve children, several of whom would later go on to
perform with her, and she was exposed to music thanks
to her mother, who stang, and thanks to music in church.
She's stanging a lot in church. And in nineteen fifty three,
so the timeline goes, she makes her first guitar out
of an old mandolin and two bass guitar strings. But
bio dot com said that a relative gave her first guitar,
(07:11):
so I'm not really sure, what the real story is
on that. I'm gonna believe that she made her first
guitar because she's Dolly and uh. Side note, a lot
of this timeline is coming from the Library of Congress
because she is a living legend from the in the
Library of Congress, So she's she's actually a bona fide
national icon. Uh And in nineteen fifty six, by this point,
(07:34):
she's become a regular singer on Knoxville's Cass Walker Show.
So she's ten years old and she's already having these
public gigs. Yeah. And in nineteen fifties seven, she makes
her first recording, Puppy Love on Gold Band Records. Uh.
In in in nineteen fifty nine, she gives her first performance
at the Grand Ol Operate No Big Deal, um. And
(07:55):
further No Big Deal, she's introduced by Johnny Cash and
performs his song you Gotta Be My Baby, earning three
encores at her performance. But she knows at this point
that she has to make the move to Nashville. She's
got to get out of Severeville where she's growing up,
into the big city if she's actually going to make it. Because,
(08:16):
as she was telling Terry Gross in a Fresh Air
interview in the early two thousand's, she didn't want to
have the life that her mom had. She you know,
she has what seven younger siblings, eight younger siblings, and
she essentially is already mother to these kids growing up.
And she was like, I was already, you know, I'd
already been a mother. I really wanted to be a woman,
(08:37):
and a successful woman at that. So she moves to Nashville,
and the first day that she's there, she goes to
a laundry Matt called the Wishy Washy, and that's where
she meets her soon to be husband, Carl Dean. So
after marrying, dreambout Carl Dean, who is very tall and handsome. Um,
she goes on to chart. She on January twenty first,
(09:00):
nineteen sixty seven, she first appeared on the Billboard Country
charts with two singles recorded for Monument, Dumb Blonde at
number twenty four and Something Fishy at number seventeen. And
you gotta love dumb Blonde coming out at this in
this era, because it just really attacked stereotypes about women. Yeah,
one of the lines of lyrics goes, just because I'm blonde,
(09:20):
don't think I'm dumb. Because this dumb Blonde ain't nobody's fool.
And that's one of the reasons why Dolly is so
well loved, whether you're a country fan or not, is
because she has always been very pro women and and
very much stands up for herself. But nineteen sixty seven,
the year Dumb Blonde comes out, is huge for Dolly
(09:41):
because she releases her first full length album, Hello I'm Dolly,
and then on September five of that year, she first
appears on The Porter Wagner Show. And I have a
feeling that a lot of people have probably listening have
probably not heard of Porter Wagner. But this was a
huge break because the show at the time had and
a half million viewers a week, and Porter Wagner was
(10:03):
this country star, this older kind of gentleman who would
wear these razzle dazzle rhyin stone and tassely jackets and
called Dolly his little lady. And he he had this
female sidekick for a while named Norma Jean, But then
Norma Jean left and Dolly came on the show and
she was a huge hit. Yeah, she initially told Porter
(10:27):
Wagner that she'd only stay five years because you know,
she she was on a mission. This was a lady
on a mission, and she wanted to start her own
solo career, but she ended up saying two years past that,
and during this time she she managed to land a
contract with r C A Records thanks to her partnership
with Wagner, and scored her first number one country hit
in nineteen seventy one with Joshua and from there, the
(10:49):
years nineteen seventy four to nineteen seventy are huge as
her star really begins to rise with the help of
being on The Porter Wagner Show. But she really pretty
quickly from that point starts to become a star in
her own right, because in nineteen seventy four, we have
Jolene Yes Joe Line Caroline. Since I started researching for
(11:13):
this episode, Joe Lene has been in my head because
it's such a catchy, such a catchy old tune, you know.
But it reached number one on the country charts and
number sixty on the pop charts, which the fact that
she's already crossing over onto the pop charts is pretty huge.
And from there, her next four singles also reach number
(11:35):
one on the country's charts, which include I Will Always
Love You, which she wrote for Porter Wagner as her
song to say, listen, dude, I said I was gonna
stay for this long five years. I've already stayed two
more years. I'll always love you. I gotta go. Thing's
gonna be better for us in the end. It's actually
not really a love song as you might think it
(11:56):
would be if you've heard the Whitney Houston version from
the Bodyguard. But it was really Dolly Parton kind of saying,
you know, you gotta go, come on, I I gotta go,
you gotta go. That it's not about Kevin Costner. It's
not about Kevin Costner. Well, but you know what it
can be about Kevin Costner if you want it to be.
I want every song to be about Kevin Costner. And
(12:17):
so within this this very short time, I mean seventy
eight that's not actually that long. But she won the
CMA Female Vocalist of the Year award. She gets her
own syndicated TV show. She ends her long professional association
with Porter Wagner. She releases New Harvest First Gathering, her
first self produced album, and the single from that album,
Here You Come Again, hit number three on the pop charts. Yeah,
(12:40):
and that album ended up going platinum, making Dolly Parton
the first female artist to have an album sell one
million copies. And Here You Come Again earned part in
her very first Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance by
a Female, and the accolades don't stop there. Hits to
five is released, Dolly earns a Golden Globe nomination for
(13:03):
Best Supporting Actress, Best New Film Star, and Best Original Song,
as well as the People's Choice Award for Favorite Movie
Song and an Oscar nomination for the title song, It
is that catchy, people, It is so catchy. And from
there she stars in Two is Best Little Horhouse in Texas,
and her remake of I Will Always Love You for
(13:24):
the soundtrack earns a Grammy nomination. Six, She's inducted into
the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame nineteen eighties, six Dollywood opens,
and in more recent years, because of all of these
accolades that we have been blowing through, we haven't even
told you every single one of them, she is essentially
(13:44):
now just starting to earn the Lifetime awards like, yeah,
we just think you're awesome, Dolly. And so in two
thousand four, that's when she received a Living Legend Metal
from the Library of Congress. And in two thousand and six,
she was one of the celebrities recognized at the Kennedy
Center Honors. And I like how recently she received a
Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammy Awards, because I think
(14:07):
what she already gotten like seven of them, and they're
like Grammys were like, listen, Dolly, just here's an award.
Just can you stop being so awesome? Other people have
to get awards, um, But she's not only popular though
in the United States. I'm sure we have some international
listeners who were well aware of Dolly Parton. But academically,
(14:28):
the one study I was surprised, the one study that
we could find on Dolly Parton was about how popular
she is in Zimbabwe. Yeah, this was this was surprising
to me. But Jonathan Zilberg basically did like this anthropological
look at the popularity that not only Dolly has, but
country music has in Zimbabwe. And a lot of it
(14:50):
just has to do with, you know, the entertainment that's
piped through the TV and the radio and the fact
that people identify with it. But you know, he looked
at Okay, well, why why do why this like blonde,
you know, big boobed, white American woman, Like what is
it about her? And he cites, you know, a lot
of her lyrics and her story itself, her rags to
(15:10):
richest story, the fact that she did come from twelve
children in the hills of Appalachia. You know, they didn't
have much, and now she's this famous singer who sings
about everyday experiences. She also incorporates uplifting Christian themes and
sings those very easy to identify with tragic love songs. Yeah,
he said that even Zimbabweans identify with the healing function,
(15:34):
as he calls it, of Dolly Parton's music. So, now
that we have clearly established that Dolly Parton is an incredible,
accomplished woman who is genuinely loved around the world, we're
going to take a quick break and then talk about
how she has parlayed her fame and wealth to help
(15:54):
other people as well. And now back to the podcast. Honestly,
I like, growing up, Dolly Parton was not played in
my household. You know, It's not I wasn't like a
hardcore Dolly fan or anything. It's only been in my
adulthood that I've really discovered her, and while I don't
(16:15):
really listen to her albums on repeat or anything like that,
I love her hits and I just, I don't know,
I appreciate her place in music history and in pop
culture in general, because she's she's just been so honest
and honestly unapologetic about who she is and what she's
done with her notoriety and all of the money that
(16:39):
she's earned, such as giving back as the book Lady Yeah.
Back in nine she started the Dollywood Foundation to inspire
children in her home community of severe Ville, Tennessee, and
it funds the Dolly Parton Imagination Library across America and
now in Canada and the UK by giving every preschool
child a book each month from the time year she
(17:00):
is born until the child reaches kindergarten, and as of August,
the program had spread communities across the US, England, and
Canada and given away almost fifty million free books, and
Dolly holds this so close to her heart. She said
that this was the thing that her father was most
proud of her for, not her stinging career, not all
of her country music awards, but the fact that she
(17:21):
was helping children to read because she said, you know,
if you as a child, particularly like a poor child,
you know, you don't have anything to call your own.
But if you get this book in the mail and
it has your name on it, and you learn to
read it, and you pour over it every month, and
then you get a new one, there's a sense of
ownership and pride in the act of learning to read.
You're gonna tell your mama or your daddy to teach
(17:42):
you how to read. And so that's something that she's
very proud of. Well, and what more empowering tool can
you give a child than the ability to read? You know? Um,
But let's talk for a minute about her personal life,
because I mean her her professional life is so huge,
and at least for um, what I've known of Dolly
before looking into her life for the podcast, I wasn't
(18:05):
very aware of her personal life because I feel like
she's always been pretty good at keeping the professional life
at the forefront. But certainly her longtime marriage to Carl
Dene They've been married for nearly fifty years. I think
they're actually about to renew their vows. But it certainly
has attracted gossip in rumors as well because she's worked
(18:27):
so closely with prominent men, whether they're musicians or actors
like Burt Reynolds. UM. And people always assume, well, Dolly
must be flirting with these men, and she must be
having a phase, I must have an open marriage. Yeah,
there's a lot of speculation people are dying to know.
And her quote is this, which is great. She says,
I love to flirt, and I've never met a man
(18:49):
I didn't like. Men of my weakness short, fat, bald,
or skinny. I've had crushes on some very unusual men,
but Carl knows I'll always come home and I'm not
having sex with these people. I'm just flirting and having fun.
I love that, she says. She said, crushes on unusual men.
That's so perfect. Well, yeah, because there was even a
rumor swirling that they were in an open marriage, because
(19:11):
I think she she's made comments about like poking fun
at long term monogamy because I mean, come on, they've
been married for like fifty years, um, and people were
scandalized by that. But she always seems so unfazed by
whatever kind of gossip people want to spread. Um. But
one thing too she's talked about publicly is the fact
(19:32):
that she and Carl don't have any kids, and she
actually went through a tough time about that. She told
the Globe at one point that she in the nineteen
eighties went through about a depression from from not having kids.
She said, I went through a dark time. It lasted
several months because I think I would have made a
nice mama. Yeah, and so, you know, she she had
(19:53):
thought she might have kids, but her you know, they
was on hold because of her career and all of
that stuff. And so then she she says, and I
want you to, like, I can't do a Dolly voice,
but I want you to imagine this in Dolly's voice.
She says, Then one day I just said to myself, right,
get off your fat butt, or if you really are suicidal,
then go and shoot your brains out. I thought, you know,
maybe God didn't want me to have kids so that
(20:14):
everybody else's kids could be mine. Well that's the thing too.
She talks about how she has so many nieces and
nephews because she has eleven siblings, so there are she
I think they call her what do they call her?
Great aunt? Granny? Is her name? They just call her
great aunt Granny. I can't do a Dolly Parton either, clearly.
But one of the most fascinating things to me about
(20:36):
Dolly Parton today and with her relationship to women our age,
especially Caroline, is how how many times I've seen her
being cited as this feminist icon, even though she's never
out and out said I'm a feminist. She's she's very
much loud and proud about her Christianity and her kind
(20:59):
of traditional family values. But at the same time, she
very much supports gay rights and gay marriage, and she's
been on the record about that. But in terms of feminism,
she pokes fun, but she's never said, well, I'm a feminist. Yeah,
But I think her life is such an excellent example
all in and of itself. I mean the way that
(21:20):
she has forged ahead with with a smile on her
face the whole time, you know. I mean she has
kind of laughed off all of this stuff as she
has pushed through the big machine to become as successful
as she is. Yeah. And one of one quote she
did give in response to her thoughts on feminism was
she said, I was the first woman woman to burn
my bra. It took the fire department four days to
(21:42):
put it out, and one thing that people really like
about her. It's just her very non judgmental attitude. I mean,
you look at the hair, you look at the boobs,
and you might start to assume things like, maybe she's
not that smart, she couldn't possibly be a feminist. But
what she's doing is basically championing your right to look
anyway you want. And I mean she's definitely not shy
(22:04):
about talking about her appearance, the wigs, the boobs, all
that stuff. In fact, she says things like it takes
a lot of money to look that cheap um. But
she just uses the self deprecation and humor and and
doesn't let it bother her. You know, she kind of
took back the female form. You could say, oh yeah,
(22:24):
I mean the fact that she has she is so big,
whether we're talking about her hair or her breast, or
just how loud her wardrobe tends to be. And it's
it's intentional on her part. I mean, she's even talked
about how her look today was inspired when she was
a little girl by a prostitute in her town who
(22:45):
she saw, and she talked about how she saw this
woman walking down the road and she was so glamorous
because she had big hair and red nails, and she
wanted to look exactly like her. And her mother noticed
Dolly paying attention to this prostitute and it was just
scandal I and said, Dolly, don't look at that woman. No,
And here, you know, She's like, well, sorry, mom, I'm
(23:06):
not sorry. Yeah. And I mean, if you look at
the song she's written, like dumb Blonde, which we cited earlier.
You know, I don't think I'm dumb because this dumb
blonde ain't nobody's fool just because I'm a woman and
nine to five, you know, just because I'm a woman.
She says, my mistakes are no worse than yours. Just
because I'm a woman nine to five talking about you
(23:27):
would think I would deserve a fat promotion, all this stuff,
and even with Joe Lene, you know where in the
story this woman is trying to steal Dolly's man. Dolly's
not calling her bad names. There's no hint of splut
shaming in this song whatsoever. She's simply saying like, look,
I know you're awesome, I know you're gorgeous, but please,
(23:47):
I love him, don't take him away. Yeah, I mean,
she's just earnestly saying I can't compete with you, Joline,
So if you could just kind of disappear, that would
be nice. Um and Dr Amy Pelloff, who's the is
asstant Director of the Comparative History of Ideas Program and
the Affiliate Assistant Director of Gender, Women in Sexuality Studies
at the University of Washington. Wow, that's quite a title.
(24:09):
Um has also looked into this intersection of feminism and
Dolly Parton from a performative standpoint, and she calls it
folk feminism what she sees in Dolly Parton. Uh. For instance,
she quotes Dolly Parton saying, I soon realized that I
had to play by men's rules to win. My way
(24:30):
of fighting back was to wear frilly clothes and to
put on the big blonde wigs. And pelaf is really
fascinated at how I mean, when we talk about gender,
we often talk about how gender is a performance, is
the things that you put on. It's the feminine versus
the masculine. Really boils down to how you are acting
and you know what you're wearing. These kinds of performance aspects,
(24:54):
and when it comes to femininity, Dolly is like the
highest most heightened version of of gender. Performance that you
could really imagine, right well, I mean she does say
I've always said that if I hadn't been a woman,
I would have been a drag queen exactly, and I
mean that goes. I mean she basically is like that
whole performance. Are the big wigs, all the makeup, the hair, everything.
(25:16):
I mean, she basically is a drag queen. And uh
Amy Pelov also points out her contradictory identities, and I
think that's interesting and I wonder if this is part
of why everybody loves Dolly is because you know, that
extreme femininity. There's the male fantasy part compared with the
gay icon aspect of her performance, the simple country girl
(25:38):
versus the jet setting celebrity, the faithfully married woman versus
the film fatale, and then the straight woman versus lesbian.
A lot of people have said, oh, well, Dolly must
be a lesbian causina she's not out with her husband
all the time, when in fact she's like, dude, we're
just she's my best friend, calmed down. And then that
whole dichotomy between the artificial and the authentic that almost
(25:58):
everything about her when you look at her probably fake,
but she herself is so genuine well, and she's so
genuine about the fakeness, you know. And and it was
one quote about the sexuality aspect or the sexualization of
her body. She said, there's nothing sexy about my look.
Men are not usually turned on by artificial looks. And
(26:21):
I've always been like that, Like she think it's thinks
it's kind of laughable to even consider herself, uh, sex
icon just because she has large breasts. Yeah, And I
mean she's been able to accomplish. I mean just you know,
we blew through that timeline of her life, but you know,
this woman has accomplished so much and been awarded with
(26:41):
so much, and she's done it on her own terms completely.
She has been able to do everything with a smile,
looking exactly the way she wants to look, doing what
she wants to do, and still gathering all of this,
all of these accolades, all of this notoriety. Yeah, and
I mean I think a lot of it goes back
to her being a child in tiny town Appalachia and
(27:06):
having this one dream and having some incredible work ethics.
She's She's even said that, Um, you know, she has
a lot of talented relatives. She's like, but I don't
think that any of them are as successful as I am,
because I don't know if anyone who really wants to
work as hard as I do, because I'm sure was
NonStop to write over three thousand songs and do everything
(27:29):
else that she's been doing. Um, and I don't know.
It's it's interesting to just think about someone who today
when I feel like in our social landscape, everything is
so polarized. Everything is you either hate it or you
love it, And it's rare to find a person who
doesn't attract as much criticism as they do praise, And
(27:55):
it's hard to find someone who wants can can legitimately
talk smack about Dolly Parton even if you don't like
her music, even if you're not a country fan, there's
something to like about her. And I think it's because
of those kind of lines that she's able to skirt
that you just mentioned of just like kind of somehow
(28:15):
being everything all at once and being totally humble and
also self deprecating about it, which I think the self
deprecation helps, you know, So happy birthday, Dolly, Happy birthday,
and call us anytime. Yeah, you can hang out if
you ever want to pop over to Atlanta. Dolly, now
that we're directly addressing you as though you're listening to
(28:36):
this episode, But I want to know though, if other
people listening consider her a feminist icon? Are you a fan?
Is there anyone out there who has a legit reason
to not like Dolly? Let us know. Let's let's talk
about Dolly for her birthday Moms stuff. Discovery dot com
is where you can send your letters, and we've got
(28:58):
a couple of letters to share with you right now. Well,
I've got an email here from Heather about our New
Year's episode on will Power, and she rightes say, lovely
Lady podcasters loved the New Year's Resolution podcast and thought
I'd cheer my willpower story with you. I started smoking
(29:19):
when I was fifteen and smoked for seven years. After
my appendix burst, Oh my goodness, and a week and
a half in the hospital, and watching both of my
grandmother spend their last few years in and out of
hospitals dying of cancer, I decided I had to quit
if I didn't want to spend my last year's in hospitals.
Once my surgeon cleared me for the physical stress of quitting,
I quit. It wasn't easy, at all, but I did it.
(29:40):
I used nicotine patches and a nicotine free e cigarette
and bribed myself constantly. My rule was that I could
have or do anything I wanted except have a cigarette.
If I wanted a pizza for breakfast, then I have it.
I want those new shoes that I don't need to
buy them, and it worked. Also. I avoided parties and
bars or lots of my friend and smoke and where
(30:00):
I used to smoke. For the first month or two.
I saved all my willpower from my goal, and now,
over two years later, I'm still a non smoker and proud.
Did I end up spending a lot of money, Yes?
Did I gain weight shockingly? No? Did I achieve my goal? Yes?
Of course I had a courb my bribery after a while,
but it was easy because I've broken my smoking habit
(30:22):
and no longer needed to distract myself. I'm not a
New Year's resolution girl, but I do achieve the few
goals I set for myself. Please share my story to
help others kick their nicotine addictions. I like that idea
of briberies. I'll take shoes, yeah, sure, um okay. I
have a letter here from Elizabeth talking about our crafting
(30:42):
episodes and our technology episodes. She says, I really enjoy
listening to your podcast, but sometimes get behind in episodes
and will podcast binge while cleaning or cooking. It is
probably only because I listened to the women in Coding podcasts,
particularly back to back with the d I y Revival
of craft podcast. Then I noticed you didn't mention how crafters,
particularly women, are becoming incredibly sex savvy is a way
(31:04):
to share, promote, and sell their crafts. The advent of Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook,
and Tumbler have done as much, if not more than etc.
As a way for crafting communities to develop, share ideas
and bond together. A couple of social media with blogs, YouTube, videos,
and software and hardware using crafting, and you have more
women than ever using technology daily as part of their
handmade craft. Very good point, Elizabeth, Thank you and thanks
(31:28):
everybody who's written into us. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot
com is where you can send your letters, but you
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(31:49):
Internet now, and it's www. Dot stuff I've never told you.
Dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is that how staff works? Dot Com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how stupp
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Caroline and I'm Kristen, and today's episode is dedicated to
a very special woman. This is one big happy birthday
card sealed with a kiss to miss Dolly Parton. That's right,
(00:25):
filled with a kiss and lots of glitz and glamor.
But Dolly Parton, her sixty eighth birthday was on January nineteenth,
and we figured we should do an entire episode on her.
And even though we're devoting an entire podcast just to Dolly,
it was hard to fit Dolly's life and accomplishments into
(00:47):
only one recording. Caroline. Yeah, we started going through this
timeline of her life and all of her awards and
her accomplishments and things, and I'm reading through it and
I'm like, okay, okay, so she did this, and she
won this, and she wrote this, and then she's are
in this and I'm like, wait, no, I can't even
keep track of all of this stuff because she has
done so much in her sixty eight years. And we
(01:07):
figured that she definitely deserved her own podcast because it's
her birthday and she's Dolly, and Dolly really deserves the
world if you ask me. But she was an incredible
it still is an incredible businesswoman. She's a legendary performer,
still performing, still touring, and she's often cited too as
(01:27):
a feminist icon, even though that's not necessarily a label
that she puts on herself. And she's one of those
unique people where no matter where on the political spectrum
you are, she everybody seems to love her. Yeah, so
much so that she is actually filling the Glastonbury Legend
(01:50):
slot during this huge festival's Sunday night performance in Yeah Yeah,
I mean, because who wouldn't want to still see Dolly Parton.
She's neabulous, she can do anything, she can wear anything,
she can say anything, she can go anywhere, and people
love her yeah uh, and she's incredibly talented to it.
(02:11):
We can't even hit all of the high points of
her career because there are simply too many to list
and that would become the most boring podcast in the world.
But for instance, she's written over three thousand songs, and
twenty five of those songs have been certified gold, platinum
(02:32):
and multi platinum, and she has garnered seven Grammy Awards,
ten Country Music Association Awards, five Academy of Country Music Awards,
three American Music Awards, and is only one of five
female artists to win the Country Music Association's Entertainer of
the Year award. And that's not even all. That's not all, Kristen.
(02:56):
She's the first artist to earn a number one record
twice with I Will Always Love You Yeah. And just
on a side note of what a what a persistent
and diligent businesswoman she is in the songwriting field, the
U S Copyright Office database shows eight hundred and sixty
two entries for Dolly Partners, either author or claimant, and
(03:19):
that wouldn't even include all of her copyrighted songs because
the database started collecting after she was writing songs. So
she's always been very much focused on her goal of
being who she is today, of this incredibly famous, talented,
(03:39):
successful performer, and has always been really diligent as well,
and on the business side of things, of making sure
that Dolly Parton gets her due for all of the
hard work that she has put into not just her
hair and makeup and clothes right well, so on the
business side of things, you know, obviously she has her
(03:59):
Dollywood amusement parks. She also has a production company called
sand Dollar, which, by the way, produced TV's Buffy the
Vampire Slayer. She also has a record label, because why
wouldn't she. Yeah, yeah, it's called Dolly Records, because of
course it would be called Dolly Records. On top of that,
she is an author her memoirs called My Life An
(04:19):
Other Unfinished Business, and she's also written a children's book,
The Coat of Many Colors, right after her song of
the same name, all about, you know, being a poor
child growing up in Tennessee and her mother's stitching together
this coat out of rags and being made fun of
at school. But now who's laughing? That's right all the
way to the bank in her sequin outfit. God, she's amazing.
(04:40):
It's amazing. Well, so I have said this on the
podcast before, but you know, Dolly is an actress as well,
and she is in one of my favorite movies of
all time. She debuted in nineteen eighties, Nine to five
with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. Yeah, it's hard to
recommend Nine to five enough because it's hilarious and it's
not only Dolly Parton, but it's also Jane Fonda and
(05:02):
Lily Tomlin, and they are an incredible trio with a
fabulous eighties wardrobe. And there's some bizarre plot points, but
you've got to love it for what it is, which
is a snapshot of when women are really trying to
make their way into the workplace and have to deal
with all these sexist male bosses and they're not having
(05:23):
any of it. That's right. And there's a shotgun involved
in some bondage. It's great. Um. She also had roles
in Steel, Magnolia's Best Little Horhouse in Texas, rhyin Stone,
and Straight Talk, in addition to TV shows, made for
TV movies, HBO Specials, the whole Thing. Yeah. I think
one of her most recent guest darring roles was on
(05:44):
Hannah Montana because, come to find out, she's Miley Cyrus's godmother. Yeah.
She has stuck up for Miley through a lot of
this rigamarole in the media. Yeah, because I mean, Dollies
had to deal with her own rigamarole as well, but
she's always handled it very gracefully because when it comes
to Dolly, she she's just been so singularly focused on
(06:05):
success and wanting to achieve her goals and accepting herself
completely for who she is. And it's kind of like, well,
I'm Dolly. You can take me or leave me, but
you're gonna take me because I'm precious. But we've got
to go through her musical timeline as well, because it's
incredible how early her talent emerged. Because in in ninety six,
(06:28):
she was born in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, and she wrote
her first song in nineteen fifty one, she's five years old,
and she wrote a song called Tiny Little Tasseltop and
it was about this homemade doll that was made out
of corn husks, and it was her friend. Yeah, to
further flesh out this image, Dolly was the fourth of
(06:49):
twelve children, several of whom would later go on to
perform with her, and she was exposed to music thanks
to her mother, who stang, and thanks to music in church.
She's stanging a lot in church. And in nineteen fifty three,
so the timeline goes, she makes her first guitar out
of an old mandolin and two bass guitar strings. But
bio dot com said that a relative gave her first guitar,
(07:11):
so I'm not really sure, what the real story is
on that. I'm gonna believe that she made her first
guitar because she's Dolly and uh. Side note, a lot
of this timeline is coming from the Library of Congress
because she is a living legend from the in the
Library of Congress, So she's she's actually a bona fide
national icon. Uh And in nineteen fifty six, by this point,
(07:34):
she's become a regular singer on Knoxville's Cass Walker Show.
So she's ten years old and she's already having these
public gigs. Yeah. And in nineteen fifties seven, she makes
her first recording, Puppy Love on Gold Band Records. Uh.
In in in nineteen fifty nine, she gives her first performance
at the Grand Ol Operate No Big Deal, um. And
(07:55):
further No Big Deal, she's introduced by Johnny Cash and
performs his song you Gotta Be My Baby, earning three
encores at her performance. But she knows at this point
that she has to make the move to Nashville. She's
got to get out of Severeville where she's growing up,
into the big city if she's actually going to make it. Because,
(08:16):
as she was telling Terry Gross in a Fresh Air
interview in the early two thousand's, she didn't want to
have the life that her mom had. She you know,
she has what seven younger siblings, eight younger siblings, and
she essentially is already mother to these kids growing up.
And she was like, I was already, you know, I'd
already been a mother. I really wanted to be a woman,
(08:37):
and a successful woman at that. So she moves to Nashville,
and the first day that she's there, she goes to
a laundry Matt called the Wishy Washy, and that's where
she meets her soon to be husband, Carl Dean. So
after marrying, dreambout Carl Dean, who is very tall and handsome. Um,
she goes on to chart. She on January twenty first,
(09:00):
nineteen sixty seven, she first appeared on the Billboard Country
charts with two singles recorded for Monument, Dumb Blonde at
number twenty four and Something Fishy at number seventeen. And
you gotta love dumb Blonde coming out at this in
this era, because it just really attacked stereotypes about women. Yeah,
one of the lines of lyrics goes, just because I'm blonde,
(09:20):
don't think I'm dumb. Because this dumb Blonde ain't nobody's fool.
And that's one of the reasons why Dolly is so
well loved, whether you're a country fan or not, is
because she has always been very pro women and and
very much stands up for herself. But nineteen sixty seven,
the year Dumb Blonde comes out, is huge for Dolly
(09:41):
because she releases her first full length album, Hello I'm Dolly,
and then on September five of that year, she first
appears on The Porter Wagner Show. And I have a
feeling that a lot of people have probably listening have
probably not heard of Porter Wagner. But this was a
huge break because the show at the time had and
a half million viewers a week, and Porter Wagner was
(10:03):
this country star, this older kind of gentleman who would
wear these razzle dazzle rhyin stone and tassely jackets and
called Dolly his little lady. And he he had this
female sidekick for a while named Norma Jean, But then
Norma Jean left and Dolly came on the show and
she was a huge hit. Yeah, she initially told Porter
(10:27):
Wagner that she'd only stay five years because you know,
she she was on a mission. This was a lady
on a mission, and she wanted to start her own
solo career, but she ended up saying two years past that,
and during this time she she managed to land a
contract with r C A Records thanks to her partnership
with Wagner, and scored her first number one country hit
in nineteen seventy one with Joshua and from there, the
(10:49):
years nineteen seventy four to nineteen seventy are huge as
her star really begins to rise with the help of
being on The Porter Wagner Show. But she really pretty
quickly from that point starts to become a star in
her own right, because in nineteen seventy four, we have
Jolene Yes Joe Line Caroline. Since I started researching for
(11:13):
this episode, Joe Lene has been in my head because
it's such a catchy, such a catchy old tune, you know.
But it reached number one on the country charts and
number sixty on the pop charts, which the fact that
she's already crossing over onto the pop charts is pretty huge.
And from there, her next four singles also reach number
(11:35):
one on the country's charts, which include I Will Always
Love You, which she wrote for Porter Wagner as her
song to say, listen, dude, I said I was gonna
stay for this long five years. I've already stayed two
more years. I'll always love you. I gotta go. Thing's
gonna be better for us in the end. It's actually
not really a love song as you might think it
(11:56):
would be if you've heard the Whitney Houston version from
the Bodyguard. But it was really Dolly Parton kind of saying,
you know, you gotta go, come on, I I gotta go,
you gotta go. That it's not about Kevin Costner. It's
not about Kevin Costner. Well, but you know what it
can be about Kevin Costner if you want it to be.
I want every song to be about Kevin Costner. And
(12:17):
so within this this very short time, I mean seventy
eight that's not actually that long. But she won the
CMA Female Vocalist of the Year award. She gets her
own syndicated TV show. She ends her long professional association
with Porter Wagner. She releases New Harvest First Gathering, her
first self produced album, and the single from that album,
Here You Come Again, hit number three on the pop charts. Yeah,
(12:40):
and that album ended up going platinum, making Dolly Parton
the first female artist to have an album sell one
million copies. And Here You Come Again earned part in
her very first Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance by
a Female, and the accolades don't stop there. Hits to
five is released, Dolly earns a Golden Globe nomination for
(13:03):
Best Supporting Actress, Best New Film Star, and Best Original Song,
as well as the People's Choice Award for Favorite Movie
Song and an Oscar nomination for the title song, It
is that catchy, people, It is so catchy. And from
there she stars in Two is Best Little Horhouse in Texas,
and her remake of I Will Always Love You for
(13:24):
the soundtrack earns a Grammy nomination. Six, She's inducted into
the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame nineteen eighties, six Dollywood opens,
and in more recent years, because of all of these
accolades that we have been blowing through, we haven't even
told you every single one of them, she is essentially
(13:44):
now just starting to earn the Lifetime awards like, yeah,
we just think you're awesome, Dolly. And so in two
thousand four, that's when she received a Living Legend Metal
from the Library of Congress. And in two thousand and six,
she was one of the celebrities recognized at the Kennedy
Center Honors. And I like how recently she received a
Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammy Awards, because I think
(14:07):
what she already gotten like seven of them, and they're
like Grammys were like, listen, Dolly, just here's an award.
Just can you stop being so awesome? Other people have
to get awards, um, But she's not only popular though
in the United States. I'm sure we have some international
listeners who were well aware of Dolly Parton. But academically,
(14:28):
the one study I was surprised, the one study that
we could find on Dolly Parton was about how popular
she is in Zimbabwe. Yeah, this was this was surprising
to me. But Jonathan Zilberg basically did like this anthropological
look at the popularity that not only Dolly has, but
country music has in Zimbabwe. And a lot of it
(14:50):
just has to do with, you know, the entertainment that's
piped through the TV and the radio and the fact
that people identify with it. But you know, he looked
at Okay, well, why why do why this like blonde,
you know, big boobed, white American woman, Like what is
it about her? And he cites, you know, a lot
of her lyrics and her story itself, her rags to
(15:10):
richest story, the fact that she did come from twelve
children in the hills of Appalachia. You know, they didn't
have much, and now she's this famous singer who sings
about everyday experiences. She also incorporates uplifting Christian themes and
sings those very easy to identify with tragic love songs. Yeah,
he said that even Zimbabweans identify with the healing function,
(15:34):
as he calls it, of Dolly Parton's music. So, now
that we have clearly established that Dolly Parton is an incredible,
accomplished woman who is genuinely loved around the world, we're
going to take a quick break and then talk about
how she has parlayed her fame and wealth to help
(15:54):
other people as well. And now back to the podcast. Honestly,
I like, growing up, Dolly Parton was not played in
my household. You know, It's not I wasn't like a
hardcore Dolly fan or anything. It's only been in my
adulthood that I've really discovered her, and while I don't
(16:15):
really listen to her albums on repeat or anything like that,
I love her hits and I just, I don't know,
I appreciate her place in music history and in pop
culture in general, because she's she's just been so honest
and honestly unapologetic about who she is and what she's
done with her notoriety and all of the money that
(16:39):
she's earned, such as giving back as the book Lady Yeah.
Back in nine she started the Dollywood Foundation to inspire
children in her home community of severe Ville, Tennessee, and
it funds the Dolly Parton Imagination Library across America and
now in Canada and the UK by giving every preschool
child a book each month from the time year she
(17:00):
is born until the child reaches kindergarten, and as of August,
the program had spread communities across the US, England, and
Canada and given away almost fifty million free books, and
Dolly holds this so close to her heart. She said
that this was the thing that her father was most
proud of her for, not her stinging career, not all
of her country music awards, but the fact that she
(17:21):
was helping children to read because she said, you know,
if you as a child, particularly like a poor child,
you know, you don't have anything to call your own.
But if you get this book in the mail and
it has your name on it, and you learn to
read it, and you pour over it every month, and
then you get a new one, there's a sense of
ownership and pride in the act of learning to read.
You're gonna tell your mama or your daddy to teach
(17:42):
you how to read. And so that's something that she's
very proud of. Well, and what more empowering tool can
you give a child than the ability to read? You know? Um,
But let's talk for a minute about her personal life,
because I mean her her professional life is so huge,
and at least for um, what I've known of Dolly
before looking into her life for the podcast, I wasn't
(18:05):
very aware of her personal life because I feel like
she's always been pretty good at keeping the professional life
at the forefront. But certainly her longtime marriage to Carl
Dene They've been married for nearly fifty years. I think
they're actually about to renew their vows. But it certainly
has attracted gossip in rumors as well because she's worked
(18:27):
so closely with prominent men, whether they're musicians or actors
like Burt Reynolds. UM. And people always assume, well, Dolly
must be flirting with these men, and she must be
having a phase, I must have an open marriage. Yeah,
there's a lot of speculation people are dying to know.
And her quote is this, which is great. She says,
I love to flirt, and I've never met a man
(18:49):
I didn't like. Men of my weakness short, fat, bald,
or skinny. I've had crushes on some very unusual men,
but Carl knows I'll always come home and I'm not
having sex with these people. I'm just flirting and having fun.
I love that, she says. She said, crushes on unusual men.
That's so perfect. Well, yeah, because there was even a
rumor swirling that they were in an open marriage, because
(19:11):
I think she she's made comments about like poking fun
at long term monogamy because I mean, come on, they've
been married for like fifty years, um, and people were
scandalized by that. But she always seems so unfazed by
whatever kind of gossip people want to spread. Um. But
one thing too she's talked about publicly is the fact
(19:32):
that she and Carl don't have any kids, and she
actually went through a tough time about that. She told
the Globe at one point that she in the nineteen
eighties went through about a depression from from not having kids.
She said, I went through a dark time. It lasted
several months because I think I would have made a
nice mama. Yeah, and so, you know, she she had
(19:53):
thought she might have kids, but her you know, they
was on hold because of her career and all of
that stuff. And so then she she says, and I
want you to, like, I can't do a Dolly voice,
but I want you to imagine this in Dolly's voice.
She says, Then one day I just said to myself, right,
get off your fat butt, or if you really are suicidal,
then go and shoot your brains out. I thought, you know,
maybe God didn't want me to have kids so that
(20:14):
everybody else's kids could be mine. Well that's the thing too.
She talks about how she has so many nieces and
nephews because she has eleven siblings, so there are she
I think they call her what do they call her?
Great aunt? Granny? Is her name? They just call her
great aunt Granny. I can't do a Dolly Parton either, clearly.
But one of the most fascinating things to me about
(20:36):
Dolly Parton today and with her relationship to women our age,
especially Caroline, is how how many times I've seen her
being cited as this feminist icon, even though she's never
out and out said I'm a feminist. She's she's very
much loud and proud about her Christianity and her kind
(20:59):
of traditional family values. But at the same time, she
very much supports gay rights and gay marriage, and she's
been on the record about that. But in terms of feminism,
she pokes fun, but she's never said, well, I'm a feminist. Yeah,
But I think her life is such an excellent example
all in and of itself. I mean the way that
(21:20):
she has forged ahead with with a smile on her
face the whole time, you know. I mean she has
kind of laughed off all of this stuff as she
has pushed through the big machine to become as successful
as she is. Yeah. And one of one quote she
did give in response to her thoughts on feminism was
she said, I was the first woman woman to burn
my bra. It took the fire department four days to
(21:42):
put it out, and one thing that people really like
about her. It's just her very non judgmental attitude. I mean,
you look at the hair, you look at the boobs,
and you might start to assume things like, maybe she's
not that smart, she couldn't possibly be a feminist. But
what she's doing is basically championing your right to look
anyway you want. And I mean she's definitely not shy
(22:04):
about talking about her appearance, the wigs, the boobs, all
that stuff. In fact, she says things like it takes
a lot of money to look that cheap um. But
she just uses the self deprecation and humor and and
doesn't let it bother her. You know, she kind of
took back the female form. You could say, oh yeah,
(22:24):
I mean the fact that she has she is so big,
whether we're talking about her hair or her breast, or
just how loud her wardrobe tends to be. And it's
it's intentional on her part. I mean, she's even talked
about how her look today was inspired when she was
a little girl by a prostitute in her town who
(22:45):
she saw, and she talked about how she saw this
woman walking down the road and she was so glamorous
because she had big hair and red nails, and she
wanted to look exactly like her. And her mother noticed
Dolly paying attention to this prostitute and it was just
scandal I and said, Dolly, don't look at that woman. No,
And here, you know, She's like, well, sorry, mom, I'm
(23:06):
not sorry. Yeah. And I mean, if you look at
the song she's written, like dumb Blonde, which we cited earlier.
You know, I don't think I'm dumb because this dumb
blonde ain't nobody's fool just because I'm a woman and
nine to five, you know, just because I'm a woman.
She says, my mistakes are no worse than yours. Just
because I'm a woman nine to five talking about you
(23:27):
would think I would deserve a fat promotion, all this stuff,
and even with Joe Lene, you know where in the
story this woman is trying to steal Dolly's man. Dolly's
not calling her bad names. There's no hint of splut
shaming in this song whatsoever. She's simply saying like, look,
I know you're awesome, I know you're gorgeous, but please,
(23:47):
I love him, don't take him away. Yeah, I mean,
she's just earnestly saying I can't compete with you, Joline,
So if you could just kind of disappear, that would
be nice. Um and Dr Amy Pelloff, who's the is
asstant Director of the Comparative History of Ideas Program and
the Affiliate Assistant Director of Gender, Women in Sexuality Studies
at the University of Washington. Wow, that's quite a title.
(24:09):
Um has also looked into this intersection of feminism and
Dolly Parton from a performative standpoint, and she calls it
folk feminism what she sees in Dolly Parton. Uh. For instance,
she quotes Dolly Parton saying, I soon realized that I
had to play by men's rules to win. My way
(24:30):
of fighting back was to wear frilly clothes and to
put on the big blonde wigs. And pelaf is really
fascinated at how I mean, when we talk about gender,
we often talk about how gender is a performance, is
the things that you put on. It's the feminine versus
the masculine. Really boils down to how you are acting
and you know what you're wearing. These kinds of performance aspects,
(24:54):
and when it comes to femininity, Dolly is like the
highest most heightened version of of gender. Performance that you
could really imagine, right well, I mean she does say
I've always said that if I hadn't been a woman,
I would have been a drag queen exactly, and I
mean that goes. I mean she basically is like that
whole performance. Are the big wigs, all the makeup, the hair, everything.
(25:16):
I mean, she basically is a drag queen. And uh
Amy Pelov also points out her contradictory identities, and I
think that's interesting and I wonder if this is part
of why everybody loves Dolly is because you know, that
extreme femininity. There's the male fantasy part compared with the
gay icon aspect of her performance, the simple country girl
(25:38):
versus the jet setting celebrity, the faithfully married woman versus
the film fatale, and then the straight woman versus lesbian.
A lot of people have said, oh, well, Dolly must
be a lesbian causina she's not out with her husband
all the time, when in fact she's like, dude, we're
just she's my best friend, calmed down. And then that
whole dichotomy between the artificial and the authentic that almost
(25:58):
everything about her when you look at her probably fake,
but she herself is so genuine well, and she's so
genuine about the fakeness, you know. And and it was
one quote about the sexuality aspect or the sexualization of
her body. She said, there's nothing sexy about my look.
Men are not usually turned on by artificial looks. And
(26:21):
I've always been like that, Like she think it's thinks
it's kind of laughable to even consider herself, uh, sex
icon just because she has large breasts. Yeah, And I
mean she's been able to accomplish. I mean just you know,
we blew through that timeline of her life, but you know,
this woman has accomplished so much and been awarded with
(26:41):
so much, and she's done it on her own terms completely.
She has been able to do everything with a smile,
looking exactly the way she wants to look, doing what
she wants to do, and still gathering all of this,
all of these accolades, all of this notoriety. Yeah, and
I mean I think a lot of it goes back
to her being a child in tiny town Appalachia and
(27:06):
having this one dream and having some incredible work ethics.
She's She's even said that, Um, you know, she has
a lot of talented relatives. She's like, but I don't
think that any of them are as successful as I am,
because I don't know if anyone who really wants to
work as hard as I do, because I'm sure was
NonStop to write over three thousand songs and do everything
(27:29):
else that she's been doing. Um, and I don't know.
It's it's interesting to just think about someone who today
when I feel like in our social landscape, everything is
so polarized. Everything is you either hate it or you
love it, And it's rare to find a person who
doesn't attract as much criticism as they do praise, And
(27:55):
it's hard to find someone who wants can can legitimately
talk smack about Dolly Parton even if you don't like
her music, even if you're not a country fan, there's
something to like about her. And I think it's because
of those kind of lines that she's able to skirt
that you just mentioned of just like kind of somehow
(28:15):
being everything all at once and being totally humble and
also self deprecating about it, which I think the self
deprecation helps, you know, So happy birthday, Dolly, Happy birthday,
and call us anytime. Yeah, you can hang out if
you ever want to pop over to Atlanta. Dolly, now
that we're directly addressing you as though you're listening to
(28:36):
this episode, But I want to know though, if other
people listening consider her a feminist icon? Are you a fan?
Is there anyone out there who has a legit reason
to not like Dolly? Let us know. Let's let's talk
about Dolly for her birthday Moms stuff. Discovery dot com
is where you can send your letters, and we've got
(28:58):
a couple of letters to share with you right now. Well,
I've got an email here from Heather about our New
Year's episode on will Power, and she rightes say, lovely
Lady podcasters loved the New Year's Resolution podcast and thought
I'd cheer my willpower story with you. I started smoking
(29:19):
when I was fifteen and smoked for seven years. After
my appendix burst, Oh my goodness, and a week and
a half in the hospital, and watching both of my
grandmother spend their last few years in and out of
hospitals dying of cancer, I decided I had to quit
if I didn't want to spend my last year's in hospitals.
Once my surgeon cleared me for the physical stress of quitting,
I quit. It wasn't easy, at all, but I did it.
(29:40):
I used nicotine patches and a nicotine free e cigarette
and bribed myself constantly. My rule was that I could
have or do anything I wanted except have a cigarette.
If I wanted a pizza for breakfast, then I have it.
I want those new shoes that I don't need to
buy them, and it worked. Also. I avoided parties and
bars or lots of my friend and smoke and where
(30:00):
I used to smoke. For the first month or two.
I saved all my willpower from my goal, and now,
over two years later, I'm still a non smoker and proud.
Did I end up spending a lot of money, Yes?
Did I gain weight shockingly? No? Did I achieve my goal? Yes?
Of course I had a courb my bribery after a while,
but it was easy because I've broken my smoking habit
(30:22):
and no longer needed to distract myself. I'm not a
New Year's resolution girl, but I do achieve the few
goals I set for myself. Please share my story to
help others kick their nicotine addictions. I like that idea
of briberies. I'll take shoes, yeah, sure, um okay. I
have a letter here from Elizabeth talking about our crafting
(30:42):
episodes and our technology episodes. She says, I really enjoy
listening to your podcast, but sometimes get behind in episodes
and will podcast binge while cleaning or cooking. It is
probably only because I listened to the women in Coding podcasts,
particularly back to back with the d I y Revival
of craft podcast. Then I noticed you didn't mention how crafters,
particularly women, are becoming incredibly sex savvy is a way
(31:04):
to share, promote, and sell their crafts. The advent of Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook,
and Tumbler have done as much, if not more than etc.
As a way for crafting communities to develop, share ideas
and bond together. A couple of social media with blogs, YouTube, videos,
and software and hardware using crafting, and you have more
women than ever using technology daily as part of their
handmade craft. Very good point, Elizabeth, Thank you and thanks
(31:28):
everybody who's written into us. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot
com is where you can send your letters, but you
can also get in touch with us on Facebook or
tweet us at mom Stuff Podcasts and to find all
things stuff Mom never told you, including every single podcast
we have ever published, every single blog, every single video,
every single social media outlet we are on, which is
a lot. There's only one place to go on the
(31:49):
Internet now, and it's www. Dot stuff I've never told you.
Dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is that how staff works? Dot Com
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